The system, the hospital and Ojobi community failed her – Otiko Djaba on ‘abandoned’ patient

Former Minister for Gender, Children, and Social Protection, Otiko Djaba, says that the true test of civilization is kindness and compassion.

She emphasised that it is in times of weakness that individuals most need protection.

This comes after a patient of the Winneba Trauma Hospital was allegedly dumped in the bush at Gomoa Ojobi in the Central Region.

Multiple reports indicate that the patient had been hospitalized at the facility for some time after an accident.

Aside from having two broken legs, she had allegedly suffered from some mental illness as a result of the accident. However, unlike other victims, her family failed to show up to care for her. Speaking on the floor of Parliament on Friday, June 14, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa condemned the act and insisted that all stakeholders involved be urgently summoned to address the issue.

“It has been reported that doctors and nurses at the Winneba Government just threw out a patient who had an accident because they couldn’t locate her family.

Speaking on the JoyNews AM show, Mrs Djaba noted that “when you are not well, that is when the hospitals come in, and so when this woman who has been involved in an accident is sent to a hospital, whatever the grade of the hospital is, and she is thrown out, abandoned in the bush, it is not about who is to blame. The system has failed. The hospital has failed. The community has failed. The social welfare system has failed. All of us, as a nation, must bow our heads down in shame. We have lost a human being. She has died out of unkindness, out of wickedness. It was unnecessary”.

Dr Djaba highlighted that if an individual with a problem goes to the hospital and cannot be identified, the system has social welfare and the police service in place to collaborate and investigate the person’s background.

She mentioned that it was discovered that the lady in question was from Ojobi, which enabled the authorities to consider sending her back to her village.

“And the people in Ojobi, when they found her in the bush, why did they leave her in the bush? Why didn’t the chiefs or the assemblyman and these observers take her home or back to the hospital? This is a serious failure. We should all bow our heads in shame” she noted.